Night of the living tax: It’s time to bury Ellison’s Inclusive Prosperity Act

In case you missed it, last Friday afternoon, before a three-day weekend, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) reintroduced his plan for a financial transaction tax on every stock, bond and derivatives trade in the country.

It was the third introduction / reintroduction of the bill, despite previous stalls, and came pre-packaged with support from a nurses’ union, continuing its familiar role as a gesture of solidarity with working-class Americans demanding Wall Street “pay its fair share.”

However, the effort seemed especially hasty this time around, with many errors. And it left still unanswered the haunting question of just how implementing a tax that hits pension funds is getting Wall Street to pay its fair share.

I understand the urgency to solidify union support in the run-up to this week’s vote that could realize Ellison’s aspirations to become the chairperson of the Democratic National Committee. But the reintroduction was jarringly sloppy.

For example, the original release cited 175 co-sponsors of his bill; a corrected version adjusts the number to 17. And the release assures readers “Eleven nations in the European Union (EU) will implement one soon.” This despite news the morning before this release that the European support of the tax had long dwindled to just 10…